Helpless
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: How can adults explain things to their children that they can't understand it themselves. In honor of 9/11.


_I know I'm sort of mangling the time line or whatever. If they were sixteen today, then they would have been six ten years ago. That's my justification._

"We're not supposed to be watching TV now," Leo said, pointing his finger at all three of his brothers, hoping his father watched his little lecture. "We're supposed to go train!"

Raph demonstrated his compliance with a little snore from the couch. Mikey said, "But Diane Sawyer is scared. There's a building falling down. Those big twin buildings are on fire because a house ran into them."

"Houses can't move." Don turned up the volume and then down again as he realized his father's supersonic hearing might incriminate them all in their elicit activity. "Wow. That was an airplane that hit it. See!"

Leo watched a large bird shaped object disappear into the building followed by a puff of fire. Gasps from the cameramen and Diane Sawyer. Charles Gibson asserted that it wasn't an accident after all. Leo thought he sounded mad.

"That's not so big a building is it? It's this big." He held up his fingers an inch apart.

They instantly knew that their father was nearby and Leo flung himself forward to take the blame for the others while pointing suggestively at their guilt. "It was me. I wanted to watch Diane Sawyer. She's always smiling and stuff and Raph likes her and thinks she's rich."

"Turn that up, my son." Splinter sat down and laid Raph's limp feet in his lap.

Leo raised his eyeridges in shock. Nothing got in the way of morning training. They all watched the TV until Peter Jennings came on and told them that more bad things were happening in other places but none of the grown ups seemed to know what was going on.

Don's forehead wrinkled in concentration. "So there are lots of other planes getting stolen? Are lots of bad men doing it? There must be if two planes hit two buildings. That's not an accident, I bet. Why are all the people running out of the White House?"

"That is the Capitol Building, Donatello. They are afraid that someone will hurt the people there too."

Don was sitting an inch away from the TV and Raph kicked him in the shell. "I can't see Diane Sawyer!"

"She's not on no more!" Mikey whined. "I want to watch The Little Mermaid! I'm bored!"

Splinter glared at him and said, "If you protest again I will take you over my knee! There are many people suffering right now!"

Mikey pouted out his lip. "Where?"

His father looked up above at the ceiling and Leo followed his gaze. The human people that they didn't see.

Then the TV showed another blown up building. It was shaped like those funny blocks that Don liked so much that had five sides. "What's that?" Raph asked, putting his grubby fingers on the screen. "Those are soldiers! Do they have tanks? I bet they blowed up that building!"

"Another plane got flown into it," Don said. "There were lots of planes doing bad things today. I bet lots of people got hurt."

"Maybe their dads all live close so they can go take them to the doctor. I stepped on a nail, dad. Look! Look!" His dirty foot waved in his father's face.

"Are lots of people scared?" Leo asked as he saw pictures of people fleeing the area that was so close and yet so unfamiliar. Several gleaming red fire trucks roared heroically up the street towards the site of the catastrophe.

"Those are firemens!" Raph pointed at them and left little smudge marks. "I bet they all save everybody. Look at their hats. Why don't they have dogs? Don't they have black and white dogs?"

"The dogs can go save the people," Mikey said as he cuddled in Splinter's lap, reading the anxiety emanating from him. "Like on Bugs Bunny."

"That building's gonna fall down." Don swung his legs on the couch and took a sip of orange juice from their forgotten breakfast. "Bet it's real hot in there and the building will all burn down. But it's real narrow so it'll just fall down I guess."

"It's too big!" Leo said. "It'll fall down like a tree."

Raph jumped up and down in some kind of fit of excitement. "I bet it'll knock down that other big building too! That would be cool." He enacted the demise of the building with his arms.

Their Sensei raised a hand to quiet them and then dust filled the screen as one of the tall towers fell under its own weight, disappearing into a rolling cloud and then vanishing.

Nobody noticed at first. Splinter chastised Raph to stop pretending that the buildings would fall down and Leo was trying to find his mittens to go out and see if any scared people were running away from the building overheard. He thought they might fall into the manholes and get stuck. "We gotta go save people," he said, trying to put on Raph's mittens which were too tight for him.

"Hey, Peter Jennings is all confused," Don said, pointing at the television. "Where'd that building go? I think a plane crashed into the ground and they lost the president someplace else."

Raph snatched his mittens away from Leo and said, "Who's Donatello Rumsfeld? They said he's dead."

Splinter sat down and put his face in his hands. Mikey patted his father's arm. "Don't be sad, Sensei. I bet they're all okay. It's snowing! Look!"

People fled down the street from the fallen giant, covered in a layer of smothering ash and debris.

They watched television into the evening and when the dust cleared in the morning, Leo saw the same shiny red fire engines that Raph had liked so much still parked around the twisted mounds of steel that had once been the World Trade Center.


End file.
